


Intricate Strings

by dearxalchemist



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, answered prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 15:45:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7763689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearxalchemist/pseuds/dearxalchemist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You weren’t supposed to laugh after a kiss like that,” He tells her, leaning over her, enjoying the distance between their noses. He resists the urge to lean down and smear the rest of her make up. Instead he reaches up, takes a lock of her dark hair in his fingers and twists and curls it up, back into place.</p>
<p>The woman grins politely and steps back, watching as he tries to hold that last lock of hair before she pulls it free. The curl bounces and brushes her cheek and she raises a hand, “Till next time, Sherlock.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A collection of answered Adlock prompts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. “You weren’t supposed to laugh”

**31\. “You weren’t supposed to laugh”**

 

London’s sky is an endless grey and she’s a shock of color among the neighborhood. Dressed in red, burning bright among the sea of people parting along the sidewalk. She is a dying star, exploding with color. Her lips are turned up and she laughs, lipstick smeared. Her kiss has left him starstruck, dazed and confused a new sensation for the man who calls himself several levels above genius. His intellect is challenged around her, torn to shreds for the world to see. The sound rattles his bones, jars his thoughts. He’s pulled from countless thoughts, cell phone dropping from the tips of his fingers and falling to the ground. The screen cracks clean down the middle, splitting open, exposing the guts of the technology that she steps over. Her heels crunch over the glass and she presses it down in the sidewalk, listening to it crack under pressure as she laughs again.

“You weren’t supposed to laugh after a kiss like that,” He tells her, leaning over her, enjoying the distance between their noses. He resists the urge to lean down and smear the rest of her make up. Instead he reaches up, takes a lock of her dark hair in his fingers and twists and curls it up, back into place.

The woman grins politely and steps back, watching as he tries to hold that last lock of hair before she pulls it free. The curl bounces and brushes her cheek and she raises a hand, “Till next time, Sherlock.”

He glances at the broken phone on the ground then back up, the woman is gone. She leaves him empty and breathless, needy and confused. His thoughts are unobtainable and he has the urge to pick at the strings on his violin. His fingers twitch and then he’s moving, leaving in the same direction as her.


	2. "Paint" - 5 Sentence Meme

**If you're still doing the 5 sentence meme will you do another Adlock with the word 'paint'? thank you!!!!**

 

Her lipstick is a bright shade of red, it’s like looking at the loveliest of roses in the brightest light, drawing him in like a moth to a flame. He can’t help himself, despite the numerous calculations in his head all of them screaming that this is a very bad idea. He leans in anyways, lips finding hers in a desperate measure to smear the war-paint she’s put on. If this is a war, then she is winning. She leaves him breathless and gasping, mind reeling with the red streaked across his mouth and the taste of her victory on his tongue.


	3. "Teach Me"

**80\. “Teach me?”**

She’s brushing her fingers over the edge of the chair and he’s counting strokes. On odd strokes, she misses the arm of the chair and touches his own. It’s only on odd ones, it’s soft and even, faint enough to be excused but hard enough to be burned in to his muscle memory. They’re held up in his townhouse. She’s wrapped up in a wool blanket provided by his nosy landlady, and yet she still looks threatening, still holds a power over him he can’t quite place. 

After what seems like an eternity, he moves forward and drags his pen across a page, drawing a little note here and there, climbing it up the ridge of lines he’s drawn out. Another stroke of her fingers, another stroke down his arm. All the hairs on his arm raise and electricity fires across his nerves. He is alive with a beating heart matching the pace of a war drum. His skin burns with every drag of her nails, he feels Dante venturing into the Inferno just for her. He stops his scribbling for an odd stroke, but it never comes. She’s stopped her strokes, stopped the pattern. A moment passed and he pulled his pen away from the paper, glancing over his shoulder at her curiously, she was watching his hands intently. She moved up to the edge of the chair, practically leaning over the arm of it. The blanket slipped over her shoulders and she was focused on the paper, not him. 

“How do you do that without an instrument?” She asked, breaking the silence in the house. He paused for a moment, pen hovering against the paper for a moment longer before he scribbled another note and felt his lips twitch up in to a small smile.

“Have I done something that mystifies even you?” His words are drawn out slow and low and he watches out of the corner of his eyes as she turns her dark head curiously, studying him like a predator much before it snatches up it’s pray. 

Her lips twist up for a moment, “Music without an instrument is quite a feature. Is it even a song?” 

He doesn’t look up at her just yet, “It could be.”

“And if it’s not?” She challenges him, her voice is playful but still sharp as ever. He doesn’t back down, instead he pushes himself out of the chair and in one flourish, reaches for the old violin by the stacked shelves. She settles back in her chair, legs pulled up under her. She looks younger than he’s ever seen her before, hair down and blanket pulled around her shoulders. With practiced fingers he pulls the violin up, places his chin and looks down at the music on the table, drawing the bow along the strings. It’s a slow drag, notes filling the air and by the time he finishes the impromptu concert she’s practically on the edge of her seat, fingers touching his hand written music.

He pulls the violin away just in time to hear her whisper, “Teach me?”


	4. "Neck" - 5 Sentence Meme

**5 Sentence Meme - "Neck"**

Her hands are in her hair, fingers delicately weaving each strand where it needs to go before she secures it with a thin pin, it’s an agonizing process that takes most of the morning and now as dusk settles over London, it’s slowly coming undone. Irene’s coat whips around her with the cold wind and within a matter of seconds, the cold is no more. A warm hand settles along the back of her neck, calloused fingers digging into the soft flesh to hold her in place. Her painted lips curve up into her trademark smirk, eyes sparking with mischief as he traces up the back of her neck and hooks his finger into one of the fallen curls.

“You found me,” She breathes and he throws his head back in a triumphant laugh, “You were never hard to find.”


	5. "Lipstick" - 5 Sentence Meme

**5 Sentence Meme - "Lipstick"**

She looks at him and he knows she’s calculating the next seven moves on the chessboard. Her eyebrow raises and her lips curve up and he knows she found her finishing move, the one that will stop his heart, leave him scratching his messy head. He doesn’t give her the satisfaction though, instead draws his attention to her nails and down along the edge of her shirt where she’s worrying the skin back and forth, missing something. Holmes makes a comment of her missing bracelet and she shoots back, that there is no bracelet, leaving him to scramble as she stands and shrugs on a coat. Irene stoops over the arm of his chair and presses her painted nails in to the fabric as her lips press into his cheek, leaving behind a smudge of red as she says her goodbye, giving him a glimpse of a red wrist with new ink; coordinates for the final rendezvous.

**Author's Note:**

> Before I started answering prompts, I have never written Sherlock/Irene before, so this was a fun adventure to partake on. I hope you all enjoyed it. I am always taking prompts @tulipsohhare


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